


Answer the One Who Loves You

by quartile



Series: Acoustic, Electric [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Flushed Romance | Matesprits, M/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Post-Retcon Meteor, Quadrant Vacillation, romantic, suggestive but not explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-09 23:09:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8916712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quartile/pseuds/quartile
Summary: He’d do the same for you. In a way, he already did, when he recorded his heartbeat for you. You keep this in mind as you ask the Mayor to distract Dave in Can Town for a couple of hours. You’re going to need some privacy.What would Kanaya think if she knew? You try not to dwell on it. This is the most ridiculous thing you have ever done.





	

**Karkat: Pity him Y/N?**

fuck fuck FUCK

\--

**Dave: Let us review.**

There is a code among bros. For lack of a better term, let us call it the Bro Code. It has many complex and unspoken rules, one of the most sacrosanct and inviolable being that a bro never puts a bro on the spot when it comes to matters of the heart.

A bro does not corner another bro in a feelings jam with no escape route.  
A bro does not confess his fears to another bro, any more than he would voluntarily expose his jugular to a predator.  
A bro does not ask another bro point-blank if he has feelings for him. 

Your violations of the Bro Code are piling up like parking tickets wedged under the windshield wipers of a BMW blocking a fire hydrant. 

Here’s another rule of the Bro Code: broship is mighty, your bros are your kin, but a bro never lets a bro all the way in.

A bro does not watch over another bro while he sleeps.  
A bro does not feel the urge to caress another bro while he sleeps.  
A bro does not spend days on end designing a private sanctuary just so another bro can get some rest.

The building’s caught fire. The sirens are advancing.

Does the most obvious rule of the Bro Code need to be spelled out for you, bro?

A bro does not mack on another bro.  
A bro does not sleep in the arms of another bro.  
A bro doesn’t... doesn’t fall in...

The firefighters just smashed the windows of your Beemer. You left them no choice. They had to connect the firehose and get water to the site before the building became a total loss.

You, for lack of a better term, are hosed.

\--

Karkat scuttles sideways away, breathing hard. You can almost see the shell assembling around him, invisible chitin scales forming a shield to protect, deflect. 

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” he gasps.

“I wasn’t,” you say. "I didn’t.”

“I don’t pity you,” he says. You didn’t expect that. You didn’t expect it to cave your chest in. You didn’t know it would fill your guts with ice to hear him deny it.

“You don’t,” you say, stunned. “This was all, what... an accident.” You stand and turn the lights on.

His chest is heaving as if he’d just raced up ten flights of stairs. “That’s not what I said.”

A wave of nausea hits you. “Risking our friendship was an accident. Making out was just for shits and giggles,” you say. You grab your shirts and yank them over your head. “Being—when we were—when you—” You can’t. You turn your cape over and over, searching blindly for the clasp.

“Listen to me,” he pleads. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

Adrenaline races through your system. You want to break something. You’ll start by trashing this room you made. Then step off the meteor and take a long walk. “We're just a story in one of your shitty pathetic books. ‘Thrown together by a game with a sick sense of humor, the last two sad and lonely fucks in the known universe seek comfort in each other’s alien dicks.’”

“Fucking shut up and listen! I don't _only_ pity you.” He slams a hand over his own mouth, horrified.

You freeze, cape half-fastened.

“What do you mean,” you say.

“It’s more than that. I don’t know what it is. It’s moving so fast.” He’s balled himself up in the corner, claws clutching his scalp. “I am— _drawn_ to you. Pity is—it’s not what I feel. It’s not _all_ I feel. You can’t think—” he stops short. “Don’t think I don’t care.”

The anger and shame that flooded you recede just as abruptly as they arrived. Karkat’s face is taut with distress. His words clamor in your ears until one phrase floats to the top.

“Are we moving too fast?” you ask. Karkat knots himself up even more. You sink to your knees and tip over onto your side on the mattress.

“Last night was intense,” you say, and he nods, just a quick bob of the head. “So was today.” You extend your arm. You can just reach his foot, so that’s what you touch. His eyes track your every movement. 

“I guess I am drawn to you, too,” you stammer. “I mean, I know, I don’t guess. If it’s too fast, we can slow down or back up or just stop, if you need to. Whatever you’re willing to be, cuddle pals, hooking up, I’m on board.”

Karkat finally speaks. “You said we didn’t have to put a label on this.”

“We don’t.”

“Then why did you ask me if I pity you?”

When you close your eyes, you can just feel the edges of what you’re grasping for. “I just, the way you were trembling—the sounds you were making, I wanted...” Nothing you can come up with makes sense. “When you do that, it’s like, everything inside me lines up. Everything feels right, like I’m going to be okay. I just wanted to know what it is.”

From the knot that is Karkat, one hand emerges just enough to touch yours.

You elbow your way across the mattress.

\--

**Lovers: Take it slow.**

If this were on Earth, we’d roll a low sun across a cloudy sky toward the west. We’d watch parallelograms of sunlight flex over carpets and bedding and legs tangled in sheets. If on Alternia, we might notice the magenta moon high in the sky while the lime moon approaches to perfect the conjunction. We might hear nocturnal birds announce the hour, early or late, a surprise either way to two lovers pacing themselves so slowly, forgetting the passage of time. Spending immeasurable kisses on one another as if drawn from bottomless purses of gold.

In a converted supply closet in a chilly factory building, two boys dare to dismantle walls. Perhaps one of them insists on keeping a light on. Perhaps the other, from modesty or unshed shame, closes his eyes to his lover’s gaze. 

“Look at you... can I touch you?”

“Please, god, please...” A flinch, a sucking of breath through clenched jaws.

“Does this hurt?”

A kind of soft keening, something like a prayer or a blessing.

“What does that mean, is that good?”

“Don’t stop, god, I need you.”

Skin sliding against skin. “Look at me?”

Sharp peppery musk spikes the air, mingles with sweat.

“You’re beautiful,” blurts one. “Oh god. Stupid. I’m sorry.”

“No. You—you are. Look at you.”

Heat and hunger and home.

\--

**Karkat: Do what you must.**

He’d do the same for you. In a way, he already did, when he recorded his heartbeat for you. You keep this in mind as you ask the Mayor to distract Dave in Can Town for a couple of hours. You’re going to need some privacy.

What would Kanaya think if she knew? You try not to dwell on it.

In the sound room, you take special care to jam the door closed. You cover the window in the door. Push snuggleplanes and pillows into a cozy pile in the center of the mattress. 

Fuck. This is the most ridiculous thing you have ever done. 

You find the little microphone Dave uses to record live sound. It clips to your sweater. You speak into it, testing the sound levels, before dimming the lights and burrowing into the pile. Where you sit, feeling like an idiot, for a solid ten minutes before you finally screw up your resolve and press record.

If you could voluntarily produce the hum-growl of pale pity, you would, anytime Dave needed it. Some can. But you can’t. You need to be in the mood.

You inhale to a slow count of five. Exhale to seven. Inhale, think about your old hive. _Safe. Familiar. The relief of sleeping in sopor slime. The comfort of rereading your favorite books._ Exhale, release the memory of fear. Inhale, remember your lusus looking after you. _It’s late, say goodbye to your friends, put away the husktop, and get some sleep like a good wiggler._ Exhale, release the combat and stress. Inhale, think about the past several days. _Dave seeking you out. Dave’s arm around your shoulders. Dave guiding you to this safe space he made for you. Falling asleep in Dave’s arms, waking up wrapped in Dave’s cape—_

Oh. That brought a tremor to the base of your spine. More of that, then. Okay.

Inhale, remember when he shared his juice with you and listened while you explained the satisfyingly complex quadrant dynamics of one of your favorite films. He’d asked some pertinent questions and seen right through the protagonists pretending to be kismeses when they really longed for moirallegiance. You remember the shiver of pale comfort you felt when you realized that, yes, he’d been listening.

Something warm and good curls around your spine and begins to climb. Exhale... inhale... exhale... you focus on the sensation, trying to stay in that moment as it grows.

You recall a recent memory and enter it, letting yourself relive every detail. Finding your way to Dave’s room in the dark. “Just let yourself in,” he’d said. Slipping off your shoes, padding over to the bed, trying not to wake him, hoping his invitation had been sincere. Climbing in, under the covers, behind him. He’d said “hey buddy” all quiet and drowsy, and reached for your arm to drape around his waist, and fallen asleep again. He’d smelled of fresh laundry and clean skin. Inhale... exhale... inhale... the shivery tingle rises and expands, this is good, you can do this.

Think of moirallegiance. Think of your top ten pale scenes, the ones you’ve dog-eared in your books and read again and again until you could recite them from memory. _Pale as clouds. Pale as sand._ Think of feelings jams with Kanaya, her endless kindness, her cool hand on your face. _Pale as moonlight._ Think of Dave, curled up beside you on the sofa, his head resting on your leg. The trust he places in you. The connection you both feel, want, need. _Grounding... verbose... caring... loyal... exasperating... pale as silk... Dave, Dave..._

Ah. The tremors increase, warming you from the inside out. They echo in your thorax. You lift your head just enough to see the sound meters flicker high and low on the stereo. It’s all being recorded. Reassured, you sink into the pillows and breathe, deep and deliberate, stroking your fingertips down your cheek, prolonging your pale orgasm as long as you can, capturing your own rumble and purr.

\--

**Dave: Learn something new about trolls.**

It’s been a very productive afternoon in Can Town. Together you made progress on the apartment building, and you finally gave the nightclub the graffiti mural it deserved. But when the Mayor suggests that there’s work to be done on some outlying government buildings, you beg off, hugging him and promising to return tomorrow. You haven’t seen Karkat all afternoon, and you think you know where to find him. 

It takes some jiggling of the doorknob and a good, hard shove or two, but you finally get the door to the sound room to open. Sure enough, his horns are barely visible in a mound of blankets and pillows. From the slow rise and fall of the pile, he seems to be fast asleep. The sound system is on but not playing anything. You pop your headphones over one ear and browse the library. A brand-new, unlabeled track catches your eye and you press play.

Karkat shifts in the pile, then pops his head up. “Don’t, it’s not ready yet.”

“What’s not?” You turn up the volume on the unlabeled track. You hear deep breathing first, and then another sound takes over. That toasty T-shirt feeling cascades over your shoulders. “Dude, is this you?”

Karkat says, “It’s not ready, give me a chance to edit it, there’s all kinds of extra crap you don’t need in there.”

It’s him. It’s totally him doing the growly thing. An addictive tranquility works its way under your skin. “Did you record this for me?”

He reaches over to tweak the sound levels. “Let me clean it up first, then you can listen to it whenever you need to.”

“I thought you couldn’t do it at will,” you say. Karkat busies himself with buttons and dials. “What exactly were you getting up to in here? Why was the door jammed?”

“None of your business.”

This? Is amazing. “Hang on, what did you have to do to make yourself purr? Did you fantasize about me bringing you coffee? Scritching your horns? Spooning you?”

“Thin ice, Dave,” says Karkat through gritted fangs.

“Oh god, bingo. Were you pale jerking off to me? Is that a thing?”

“Fuck off. I was trying to do something nice for you.” Karkat is beyond flustered, reddening to his ears. “How I managed it is of exactly zero concern to you.”

You sit back on your heels and listen as Karkat’s recorded vocalizations reverberate through the room. The toasty-T-shirt feeling has evolved into an all-over-footie-pajamas feeling. “You recorded yourself for me. It’s like the pale version of sending me dick pics.”

“God fucking damn it, Dave. Don’t make me regret it.”

His recorded voice feels like sun on your back, the last day of school, the anticipation of seeing old friends again. “It’s really good.” You roll your shoulders in contentment. “I needed this. I mean it. Thanks.”

Karkat glances at you to reassure himself you aren’t teasing. He makes some room in the blanket pile. “Get over here, dork.” You oblige and he snuggles into you. “It’s yours now. Do what you like with it.”

“What about you?” you ask.

“What about me?”

“Are you mine now?” You kiss him, first a soft press to the lips, then seeking with your tongue until he moans. You deepen the kiss as your bodies align. “Can I do what I like with you?”


End file.
